


Empty

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Tragedy, Captain America: Steve Rogers (2016), Character Death, Cosmic Cube, Graphic Description, Hydra Steve Rogers, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Not Happy, Secret Empire (Marvel), Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve faces Iron Man in the final battle to make his Secret Empire last. Tony is in a coma and all Steve's facing is an empty shell...Heed the warnings.





	Empty

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cap IM Tiny RB Round 6: Commander](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11713596) by [Shaliara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaliara/pseuds/Shaliara). 



> Written for the TRB 2017 Amnesty Week for Shaliara's art: http://capim-tinybang.tumblr.com/post/163828994058/cap-im-tiny-rb-round-6-commander

Steve had had enough. He was bleeding, his limbs hurt and he had just taken a bad hit to the jaw.

These rebels - all people who he knew better than they knew themselves and who in their blindness had made his grab for power _necessary and easy_ \- needed to be crushed once and for all.

"Take out Iron Man first. That AI has interfered enough," he spat and thought of the last time when he'd faced that bit of Tony that was still vexing him despite the man himself lying in a coma; Elisa had saved him when the AI had detonated the armor it had manipulated at the time. And Steve -

Steve had _hesitated_ and Elisa had paid for it with her life.

Just a moment, while this false image of Tony, this artificial copy of the man who would never see what he had accomplished, had used all its inherited skill, to speak to him like the man would have: on his knees, begging for Steve to listen to him, apologizing... _You're my hero._

Even now, crashing his shield down on the armor in the way he had once before done, when he'd been caught in a rage, during another conflict, with the man inside the machine, he could still hear the soft voice that was such a close copy of Tony's, pleading with him and planning his death all along.

He couldn't even blame the AI. It was Tony's consciousness in digital form. Tony had planned ahead, ensuring his own immortality. And Tony, stubborn and arrogant as he was, must have come to understand that he would not be able bring back the Steve who believed in the lies they'd all been telling themselves over the years.

"Stop it, Steve," Iron Man's voice said out of the armor. They were in ruins of another city, another purge that had been forced on him by his former friends.

"Never," he whispered between gritted teeth. "This is over. I've won. Now it's time for the ghost in the machine to die, too."

Iron Man huffed; so much like Tony. "Steve... We have..."

But he wasn't listening anymore. This would be their last fight. 

This AI needed to be stopped so he could remake the world, bring back the true history that had been taken from them, set right the world - and wake up the man who he really wanted to see this world he'd saved.

He had collected pieces of the Cosmic Cube and he was able to use them. Even now, one was in his hand; the hand that wasn't holding the shield. It gave him the power to push back against the more powerful armor and _push hard_.

The sudden burst of strength had not been real before he'd made it so with the Cube shard and the AI had not been able to compute the outcome. With his whole strength Steve made him topple and stumble and with a terrible metallic screech the armor was speared on rebars, sticking out of the rubble of what had once been a skyscraper.

"Stay there," Steve spat. "Blow yourself up if you must. But I'll get you. I'll get you in line. I'll wake _him_ up and get him to bend his knee before me! We've won. And you will accept it."

The armor made a broken noise. Hydraulics sighed and moaned.

Tony's voice.

Choking and in pain.

Fake.

Groaning, but not real.

He huffed. 

"Stay there," he warned and turned to look back at the battle.

But the fray was dying down.

"You..." The voice called him back and angrily he looked at the armor.

Arms were reaching up, faltering, struggling.

And suddenly the helmet fell down.

A terrible sound in the sudden quiet that allowed him to hear nothing but the beat of his own heart.

Tony.

No blue, translucent face.

A real body.

A body.

A face,

A bleeding face with cuts and bruises.

Tony.

Breathing painfully.

Fresh blood bubbling from his lips with every breath.

"Hope... you're happy... now.."

It was Tony.

He was a mess.

He was a dying mess.

And he wasn't even supposed to be alive.

"How...?"

He wanted to tell him how much he deserved this, but he was confused about how he even got here. He couldn't think. And there was that shard of power in his hand.

"The real..." Tony started but more blood came up an he coughs.

And Steve was confused and _angry_. He stumbled closer. Everyone. Everyone would rather die than see the light. Everyone would rather take their last breath than stand with him. Rick, Sharon... now Tony.

"You are such a coward! Such a coward hiding behind an AI, when..."

And Tony was laughing, impossibly, breathless, life and blood draining out of him slowly. "You are the coward," he whispered, his voice uneven and his breath labored. "Shard..." He trailed off weakly. 

Steve made a few steps closer, steeled himself. Stopped. Tony had known .

_He wasn't even supposed to be alive and now he's dying again._

_Good._

_Elisa is dead because of him._

_Was that him all along? Guiding the resistance from the shadows?_

He hadn't even realized how close he'd come until the right corner of Tony's blood spattered lips curled up into a smile that was also a pained grimace. A tear ran down his cheek and mingled with the blood and Steve was frozen n place, unable to look away. 

_I did this._

"Don't look... shocked, Hydra Supreme. Tony's voice was so soft. "There ...as n...ver another... outcome."

He tired to say: "You're right." But he'd had another one in mind. And there was still the Cube.

With what looked like his last strength Tony, pulled of the metal gold and red arm of the armor that Steve had noticed had been torn by a previous explosion. He hadn't thought much of it then. He had thought it was just an empty armor.

But now a pal arm was exposed, with scratches and bruises.

"Stark," he said.

And Tony reached up - and there was that eerie smile again.

"..kay. Okay. Real." He tried to take a deep breath but all that came out was a gurgling sound.

Like he couldn't help himself, Steve stepped closer. "Tony."

"Hey," Tony breathed. "Makes us... even, huh?"

"Stop talking!" He wondered if there was anything that could be done for him, anything he could do. "This was never meant to be you."

"No, no, no, not meant to... be... you. You're wrong." His cold fingers touched Steve cheek; and reflexively, stunned by the display o stubborn defiance and out of place affection he was as caught as he had been back on that other battlefield.

"You're trying to blow me up again," he said, and yet at the same time grasped Tony's hand tighter, but also the shard that he was holding in the other hand.

"Yes," Tony said and his eyes were barely open. "Blame me?"

"No." He would have done the same in a similar situation. He hadn't planned on Carol putting Tony in a coma, but he _had_ considered an outcome like this. He had been ready even minutes ago to tear the armor apart limb by limb to get the perky AI out of the way.

There was no need to pretend now.

Tony was dying.

And Steve felt empty.

"Good," Tony said and Steve half expected the two of them to evaporate in the heat of an explosion just then. But he couldn't look away, as the color was bleeding from Tony's face and the man looked calm and at peace.

"I meant everything," Tony said in the barest whisper, but struggling less with the words than before. 

Steve leaned forward to hear him better and ended up holding himself against the rebars. "I can undo this. I can undo this just tell me where you're hiding the missing Cube shards. Tell me you'll stand with me and..."

Tony - light slowly bleeding from his eyes - _smiled_.

It made him want to shake him, made him want to beg him. "Tell me, Tony. It will all be okay. You'll be with me..."

He leaned forward hoping to catch his final whisper.

"W...ill... be. Right... He loves me."

Tony touched his hand, the one that was holding the shard, just as Steve, leaning forward between the bars, brushed his cheek against Tony's. He was crying not caring right now to hold back. He was losing Tony again. 

"Needed you close," he said sounding - stronger.

"What?"

"Cube," Tony said and his eyes were falling shut. "Come back to me, Steve."

"Don't die damn you!" 

And then he felt the pull of the power, the Cube changing reality, forming things around him, choosing probabilities to make certainty.He wished for things to be set right, but there was another will at play and Tony's voice whispering in the distance: "Make it right. Come back to me."

He realized that Tony had his own part of the Cube with him. That they were both fighting on another plane of existence.

He closed his eyes.

Let it happen.

Heard the click of the armor as the self-destruction sequence neared its end.

Pressed his lips against Tony's cold ones and felt the world fall away as they were both still reaching for a new reality catch them.


End file.
